CreativeMornings/Toronto

Creative Mornings 13 with Dave Meslin

Speaker: Dave Meslin, a Toronto-based artist and organizer, with a focus on public space issues, cycling infrastructure, & voting reform.

Register online. This event is free. Follow @Toronto_CM and sign up to our newsletter to receive reminders and alerts.

Creative Conversations: Nora Young

Interview and illustration by Cassie McDaniel

Ahead of this Friday’s lecture, we caught up with Nora Young to see what she might bring to us this upcoming dark November morning. And we’ll tell you what – after further insight into her creative process, we are more excited than ever to present this whip-smart, down-to-earth force for creativity and storytelling in Toronto. See for yourself!


The Virtual Self is your first book. How did that process go? Was it really difficult to finish or did it flow pretty naturally from content you’d developed over the years at CBC? What are your next steps?

I really enjoyed being able to dig deeper into a topic than you can on a weekly radio  show/podcast. I loved being able to chew over ideas, and see how the form and the argument emerged. It was really difficult to spend that much time alone, though. One of the great things about making Spark is that it’s highly collaborative, and I really missed that collaboration working on The Virtual Self. Because of that isolation, I initially thought this would be my only book, but I’m now starting to think about other opportunities. One thing I’ve been mulling over is whether I - or Spark - might edit a series of short ebooks on topics
about technology and culture.

Where do you go in the city – or out of the city – to recharge and feel inspired?

I do find that if I don’t get out in nature, I start to get a bit squirrelly. I often ride my bike through the Don Valley system; that always makes me feel recharged. When I’m trying to come up with  ideas for a new project, I just walk and walk downtown and try to leave my ‘antennae’ up for creative inspiration.

What has been the greatest challenge in your career so far? Your greatest accomplishment?

Leaving DNTO and becoming self-employed was my greatest challenge, and in some ways my greatest accomplishment too. I had to go through a lot of personal and professional growth to be confident - I think anyone who is self-employed knows how much of succeeding in that realm is a mind game. Beyond that, Spark is where my heart is, and I consider Spark my greatest accomplishment (though obviously, not mine alone).

I’m going to borrow a page from The Great Discontent and ask: Are you satisfied creatively?

Sometimes I am; Spark does give us latitude to play creatively in how we produce stories. I have to say, though, that I get bored easily and am always looking for new challenges. Change really fuels my creative impulse.

Besides Spark and The Sniffer of course, what are some of your favourite podcast or radio series everyone should know about?

Like many public media fans, I love Radio Lab; they have such a sonically rich, creative, and relentlessly entertaining way of producing science stories. I love Philosophy Bites, which is short interviews with leading contemporary philosophers about topics in ethics and philosophy. As the name implies, it’s bite-sized, so perfect for a short commute. At
CBC, I really enjoy the consistently fascinating IDEAS.

We Are (number) One!

We feel so fortunate to you have you guys with us! It was a blast celebrating our first full year and we look forward to another jam packed year of talks, ideas, coffee, cup cakes and most importantly discussions and learning. 

We are here to help make our city an even better creative hub and we get the energy and inspiration from you: the early risers, our speakers, and supporters. 

Stay amazing Toronto. Here comes Year Two!

CreativeMornings 1 year birthday party + DesignThinkers after party

In the past year, we’ve hosted 11 sold-out CreativeMornings events across Toronto. That means 11 mornings, 11 talks, 17 speakers, and a little over 1000 cups of coffee.

Looking back at the year we are extremely thankful for the generosity and wisdom of our speakers, the trust from our sponsors and the dedication of the volunteers. And frankly, without you, the great creative community of Toronto, none of this would have been possible.

To thank everyone for being a part of this creative movement in our city we’re having a birthday party to celebrate with you and all our previous speakers!

This party is also be the after party for DesignThinkers, which means an extra special creative crowd and a few out-of-towners – let’s show our guests how awesome Toronto is.

THIS PARTY NEEDS NO REGISTRATION. We are expecting 150+ guest and are prepared for a little more. First come first serve.

Date / Time: November 9, 8:30pm
Location: The Ballroom (Upstairs), 145 John Street, Toronto, ON M5V 2E4 (Map)
Facebook Event 

Party supported by Freshbooks and Vitamin T

These were our amazing speakers who inspired us throughout the year:
Nov 2011 – Helen Kerr & Nigel Smith, KerrSmith Design
Jan 2012 – Patty Johnson
Feb 2012 – Vanessa Eckstein, Blok Design
Mar 2012 – David Buchbinder, Composer, Musician, Director of Diasporic Genius
Apr 2012 –  David Scadding, Designer, Design Educator 
May 2012 – Gary Taxali
June 2012 – Andrew and Matt McCracken, Doublenaut
July 2012 – Paddy Harrington, Bruce Mau Design
Aug 2012 – Audience takes the stage: Arianne Shaffer of Love Letters to a Friend, Katherine Hague of ShopLocket, and Irwin Adam Eydelnant
Sept 2012 – Paul Rowan, Umbra
Oct 2012 – Claire Dawson and Fidel Peña, Underline Studio 
Announcing November 2012 - Nora Young, Host of CBC’s Spark

CreativeMornings 11 with Underline Studio

Presented by Vitamin T

This event is free. Online registration opens on Monday October 22, 9:00am. Follow  @Toronto_CM and sign up to our newsletter to receive reminders and alerts.

About the speakers

Claire Dawson was formerly Creative Director at Concrete Design Communications, where she worked for eight years on a wide array of marketing and corporate communications projects. Among the clients she has collaborated with are Holt Renfrew, Harry Rosen, Umbra, Dyson, Noranda, Prefix and the University of Toronto. A fine arts graduate from York University, Claire serves on many creative awards juries, lectures regularly on design issues and advises students as a visiting critic in the York/Sheridan Joint Program in Design.

Fidel Peña previously held senior design positions at Concrete, Dinnick & Howells and Pentagram London. He has led projects for a broad range of international clients, from Holt Renfrew and Cole Haan to Audi, Vanidad magazine and the London Institute. A graduate in design from George Brown College (where he is on the program advisory committee), Fidel is a vice-president of the Advertising & Design Club of Canada, a board member of Latin American Canadian Art Projects and a guest faculty member of Institute Without Boundaries.

Sponsor

In a nutshell, Vitamin T was created to exclusively meet the unique needs of ad agencies, mid-sized companies and digital creatives. We spend our time connecting the best creatives in the industry and we’d love to connect with you at the Creative Mornings event!

Venue

More than a hotel,The Gladstone is a social and cultural incubator facilitating sustainable and accessible ways of experiencing art, culture, community, and local cuisine. We host over 100 arts-related events each and every month!